In 2013, the school was delighted to be assessed as a flagship school for the Open Futures Project. This was the culmination of 2 years of high quality training for all staff in the four Open Futures Strands: Growit, Cookit, Filmit and Askit (Philosophy for Children) and recognised the work that the school had done to promote a creative, enquiry based curriculum.

At Chiltern Primary we plan opportunities to garden (growit), bake and cook (cookit), take pictures and make and edit films (filmit), and to promote higher order thinking skills (askit) within and throughout our curriculum. We believe that these activities stimulate and motivate pupils and help them to discover and develop the practical skills, personal interests and values which contribute to their education and help to enhance their adult lives.

What our pupils say about Open Futures …

'It gets you more involved, you get messy and you get to choose more.

My Granddad applied to do the allotment and now I can help him.'

'We get to make things I didn’t know about and also get to do things I’m not allowed to do at home … we made potato salad, I hadn’t heard of that before.

You can take it home and show your family and then do it at home.'

'We filmed each other when we were learning about the Vikings, then I filmed my sister at home.'

'I like askit because you get information but it’s confusing.'

What Ofsted said:

‘This is a rapidly improving school.’

Activities are planned that motivate and engage pupils in their learning. As a result, pupils enjoy lessons and are keen to learn. Pupils said, ‘Lessons are as fun as they can be,’ and ‘Things that happen around us are included in our lessons.’

The curriculum provides many opportunities for pupils to develop their literacy, numeracy and enquiry skills through gardening, horticulture, cooking and film. It links learning and real life experiences in order to help pupils discover and develop practical skills and personal interests. For example, pupils eat food that they have grown themselves. In such projects they use many skills such as measuring the vegetable beds before digging and learning new words as they discuss the recipes they are going to cook.